Selv i det frugtbare kakaoland, Elfenbenskysten, er regnmængden faldet med 15 procent fra 1971 til 2000 og et nyt studie når frem til, at det kan blive for varmt til at dyrke det vestafrikanske lands største eksportvare i 2050 – hele regionen ramt.
BINGERVILLE/DAKAR, 2 April 2012 (IRIN): Unpredictable rainfall in parts of Ivory Coast (Elfenbenskysten) cost some farmers over half of their harvest in 2011 producers told IRIN, but, armed with more knowledge about how to get weather reports and interpret them, they might still have been able to boost their output, say agricultural specialists.
Marc Kouamé, a farmer in the north who grows okra, peanuts and cassava, told IRIN that farmers “no longer know where to turn” because of the changing seasons.
“I lost half of my peanut production because I didn’t plant it at the right time,” he said. Many farmers feel more and more helpless in the face of such uncertainty.
Between 1971 and 2000, rainfall in Ivory Coast dropped by 15 percent, according to Augustin Kouakou Nzue, head of agro-climatic studies in the National Weather Service (Direction Météorologie Nationale), although it has increased slightly since 2000.
In southern Ivory Coast, farmers took clearly defined seasons for granted until the 1980s: rains from April to mid-July; a short dry season from mid-July to September; a short rainy season until November; and finally a long dry season from December to March.
Now, the rains come later and finish earlier, with longer dry seasons and patchy distribution, says Nzue.
Most growers rely on rain-fed production, so the long-term impact of this shift could devastate Ivoirian farmers, who make up 60 percent of the workforce. Cocoa, the West african country’s main export crop, could also be affected.
A September 2011 study by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, based in Cali, Colombia, predicts that rising temperatures may make it too hot to grow cocoa by 2050.
Sidiki Cissé, head of the National Agency to Support Rural Development (ANADER) in the commercial capital, Abidjan, is clearly worried. “The desperation of farmers is clear to see,” he told IRIN.
Poor and erratic (svingende) rainfall in 2011 and the subsequent poor harvests across the southern Saharan band have thrown 13 million people into a food security crisis in the Sahelian zones of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Mali and Senegal.
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95214/CLIMATE-CHANGE-Farmers-and-forecasts
Begynd fra: “Donors and investors are channelling climate adaptation funds (midler til at modstå klimaforandringerne)….”
